Archive for May, 2008

Well, one judge does anyway. You’ll remember that Justice Fogarty controversially ruled that some of the the guidelines for cameras in court were illegal (I discussed the ruling here). Another High Court judge, Keane J, has disagreed. In R v Crutchley, he said that the guidelines are “entirely compatible with a trial judge’s duty to secure that justice is done.” […]

Earlier this year, the Law Commission released its Review of the Law of Privacy. It’s well worth a read. It demonstrates what a nebulous and problematic concept privacy is. The review is part of a four-stage inquiry into the whole gamut of privacy laws, including the Privacy Act, public registers, the tort, and other privacy-related laws. […]

You may know that the government is having a big think about what to do about the patchwork of increasingly moth-eaten laws and regimes that govern broadcasting content. It has produced discussion papers and invited feedback. The submissions are here. More on this soon.

… is why so many journalists seem to have no idea of what an acquittal means. I’m getting pretty sick of statements like this one, from today’s Herald on Sunday: …the jury of seven men and five women were unanimous in their view that he was not the killer. No, they weren’t (or if they were, their […]

The Clean Slate Act effectively expunges people’s old, minor criminal offences. But does that mean the media can’t publish them? Reading the Act as a whole, it looks like it doesn’t. Yes, it’s an offence for a journalist to ask someone to disregard the Act, which allows people to lie about particular convictions if they […]

This might surprise you. I was looking at broadcast licences the other day. As you might guess, they can be subject to conditions, and most of the ones that are imposed relate to technical issues: making sure there’s no overlapping use of the spectrum, for example. Mostly, they’re nothing to do with the content of […]

There is only one Chatham House Rule, and this is it: When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed. Note that it allows quoting, […]

Some upcoming free speech cases: Electoral Finance Act judicial review: strike-out application to be heard on 15 May. Applicants John Boscawen, Garth McVicar, Rodney Hide, and Graham Stairmand now want the court to rule that the Attorney-General should have advised Parliament that the Electoral Finance Bill was inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act, and […]

This blog is mostly about free speech. It should be becoming clear that my philosophy is that freedom of expression is extremely important and that any limits on it should be carefully defined and properly justified. That philosophy tracks closely with the framework of the Bill of Rights Act, which is relevant to almost all […]